My unit plan for Mrs. Hannah's 8th grade class at North Smithfield Middle School is going to focus on the study of motion and forces. These two topics are not only important for students to understand, as they are present in their every day life, but they can also be very interesting for the exact same reason. In simple terms, motion is a change in position, meaning motion happens pretty much everywhere, when students walk from class to class or when the school bus stops at a red light and then proceeds again when it turns green. Motion is all around us and I want to help the students learn about it, and be able to describe, predict, and report it. I will take the students further in depth with the study of motion and teach them the relationships between motion, position, location of objects, speed, and acceleration. I will do this through power points, labs, group activities, individual assignments, class discussions and finally assess them in the end to test their knowledge on the subject matter. My unit plan will revolve greatly around hands on activities, as I feel that this is the best way for the students to understand what motion is and how it changes an object's position depending on its speed. However, I will still incorporate other activities that are more independent-based, for the students that struggle with collaboratively based activities.
The second half of my unit plan will change its focus to force, which is the push or pull of an object. A main point about force that I will be stressing to the students is that any push or pull to an object is force, however the object may or may not move. The students will be working mostly in labs and small group activities to study force, specifically Newton's three Laws. There will be a lab/group activity for each of the laws, the first relating force and motion, the second relating force, mass, and acceleration, and the third relating action and reaction forces. Gravity will be incorporated into this section as well, since gravity is a constant force that surrounds us, which students are sometimes very unclear about. Another area of specificity within the study of forces will be unbalanced vs. balanced forces. The students will be working in labs incorporated with ramps, balls, cars, and other exciting tools. At the end of most labs the students will be reporting their results through the use of graphs. I strongly believe that technology is becoming more and more incorporated into our daily lives, so I feel that students should be very comfortable with it at a young age. They will be charting all of their information and then graphing it so they are able to further analyze it. By the end of my unit I will have spent about seven weeks working with my students about what motion and forces are. During my last week at North Smithfield Middle School, I will introduce the concept of friction very briefly. Mrs. Hannah will be teaching the friction unit, I will simply be introducing the term to the students. This brief introduction will involve using formulas , such as "speed = distance/time". I not only want my students to be able to understand what motion and forces are, but I want them to able to apply it to real life situations and be able to analyze and graph it through the use of formulas.
The second half of my unit plan will change its focus to force, which is the push or pull of an object. A main point about force that I will be stressing to the students is that any push or pull to an object is force, however the object may or may not move. The students will be working mostly in labs and small group activities to study force, specifically Newton's three Laws. There will be a lab/group activity for each of the laws, the first relating force and motion, the second relating force, mass, and acceleration, and the third relating action and reaction forces. Gravity will be incorporated into this section as well, since gravity is a constant force that surrounds us, which students are sometimes very unclear about. Another area of specificity within the study of forces will be unbalanced vs. balanced forces. The students will be working in labs incorporated with ramps, balls, cars, and other exciting tools. At the end of most labs the students will be reporting their results through the use of graphs. I strongly believe that technology is becoming more and more incorporated into our daily lives, so I feel that students should be very comfortable with it at a young age. They will be charting all of their information and then graphing it so they are able to further analyze it. By the end of my unit I will have spent about seven weeks working with my students about what motion and forces are. During my last week at North Smithfield Middle School, I will introduce the concept of friction very briefly. Mrs. Hannah will be teaching the friction unit, I will simply be introducing the term to the students. This brief introduction will involve using formulas , such as "speed = distance/time". I not only want my students to be able to understand what motion and forces are, but I want them to able to apply it to real life situations and be able to analyze and graph it through the use of formulas.